Just curious, do people use certain type of workouts for outside?
I’ll try to use SMART workouts so manage the correct XSS but presumably some workout styles can be easier to manage riding outdoors than others. Is there a search field for this?
Thanks for the comments about taking hills slowly to manage focus.
The vast majority of my outdoor workouts are done at or a bit below VT1 which I can feel from my breathing.
I have just populated my personal workout library with a range of workouts that go up in 5 XSS increments, but which all have XSS/hr set at 60. I then name the workout the same as the calculated XSS. So a 90 minute ride would have an XSS of 90 and be named 90XSS. This way the XATA planner with the Filter set to Personal quickly shows me exactly how much XSS I’m trying to meet each day. I then ride to meet the XSS target and just use the time as a rough guide.
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Super helpful…thanks!
I also ride to feel and / or HR more on longer outdoor rides, but do keep an eye on power as it can take time for HR and breathing to adjust to power increases.
The Adaptive Training Adviser tells you your target XSS for the day (above the Training Pacer), and it’s easy to divide that by 60 (or whatever XSSR you normally do) to get the target hours, so not sure you need to create a workout for that? Or do you still actually run the workout outdoors? (If you have a Garmin, the data fields give more flexibility than the workout player as you can still access other screens on your bike computer… eg it can show the XSS for the ride as you go)
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I watch power too, especially on hills.
I like to plan out four week blocks with 3 weeks of building and 1 week held at the current training load which gives me a slight positive form at the end of block . I’m shooting for a gain of 10 points per 4 weeks which XATA achieves with a Moderate-1 ramp.
It’s easy to enter a few key rides and then let XATA fill in the blanks and it’s easy to change if things don’t go quite to plan. I couldn’t care about focus duration at this stage as my prime objective is to double my training load whilst staying healthy.
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ah ok - can see it’s useful if you want to populate the planner
I’m curious as to how you lay out your 60XSS/hr workouts. Do you just have a straight XSSR rate or do you use intervals to balance out a final XSS of 60/hr?
Thanks
Why’s that?
That would do my head in, riding for 90 minutes at the same watts. No warm up or Cool down either?
@Old_Major is using these low intensity/endurance workouts to block out portions of the Planner based on XSS targets as time (60 XSS = 60 minute ride, etc.).
Warm-up/cooldown isn’t a factor since the purpose is to designate time slots for outdoors rides ridden with LTP./VT1 in mind. No need to monitor watts at all. If you can’t carry on a conversation you’re going too hard. 
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Ah sorry. So you’re not actually riding those sessions indoors? Sorry I misread.
Because XATA will give me an appreciable amount of time between VT1 and TP for practically every ride that it schedules. I simply don’t want to be getting into fight or flight mode that often.
There are workouts like this in the workout library. Search for “active” and you’ll find several active recovery workouts with similar setup at various durations.
It’s easy pedaling so no warmup/cooldown needed.
Indoors you’d probably watch TV or Netflix or read a book on Kindle if you want. 
They are just recovery rides with a very low XSS/hr.
100% agree. Unless I rode at long flat road, I was not able to do xert workouts in any meaningful way. And for endurace rides I am fine with keeping my power around LTP.
New Xert user here, just signed up with a trial. I only ride outdoors, I don’t have a trainer. Can’t really comment on using Xert outdoors but training outdoors doesn’t have to be difficult or complex.
Endurance ride: stay below LT1, use either power meter or HR monitor or both. Yes this means going slowly up hills in granny gear. For me it meant buying an 11-34 cassette (already had 50/34 chain rings) to make that easier due to the terrain where I live. It takes discipline and I admit sometimes I’ll hit pinch climbs with a 500-800W burst instead of taking it easy.
Intervals: Old school hill climbing repeats. I have 3 different hills within 20min ride of home where I can do VO2Max intervals. 30min ride to a 2km climb that takes me 8-9mins, I do it 4 times. I ride to/from these below LT1. 60min to a 2km climb that takes me 12-14min, I do it 3 times - I ride there and ride back so I get 2hrs of endurance work at the same time. As I get fitter I’ll increase the number of climbing repeats.
Not sure whether I’ll even try and use Xert player during my workouts, or just use the platform for stats. Have been using Intervals.icu and found it very useful for tracking load/fatigue and all the other great stuff it has.
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If you have any flat or flattish places to ride then the Xert player workers loaded onto a Garmin work well.
I personally find it very difficult to do structured training outside as I live in a hilly area, where it constantly goes up and down. I tried once, but was put off when I got prescribed a 140W recovery up a hill or 370W downhill. What I do is like Armando said, I have some target duration, say 3 mins, and I plan a few Strava segments of similar duration along the route. Using Strava Live segments I then hammer for that duration and the benefit is twofold (for me): I train the focus duration and hopefully get a PR. I’ve taken a few KOMs this way. And if you’re doing a group ride, I guess you can use the time in front to do your target duration (if your duration is short enough, say, 3-6 mins). Of course, that’s provided your riding buddies don’t complain that they have to work too hard sitting on your wheel 
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I have a Wahoo Bolt, I can download and convert the workouts to .mrc. But I have a trainer now so would just do them on that, either with the Bolt or the Xert player.